Archive for the 'me' Category

For those unfamiliar with SOPAÂ (Stop Online Piracy Act), you must read and dig into this crazy Act that can and will pretty much screw up any freedom and innovation like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Reddit, etc if it happens. Please sign up to petition against it HERE.Â Learn more about it from the video above from Chris Hayes.

Over the summer, at my first FooCamp, I was asked “What does Education mean to you” by the amazing team over at Vittana which you should look into.

I knew Education was incredibly important in my life and one of my thoughts made it into the Vimeo video above (with some other awesome individuals), but I thought this would be a good time to reflecte into this question a bit more for the holiday break.

What does Education mean to me?

Education is the opportunity to learn from the world and discover myself to share with others.
Education gives me the ability to breath, to grow, to be curious, to be wrong, and at times be right.
Without Education, I’d never learn, I’d never try, I’d never know myself, nor would I even question if I were wrong or right.
Education enables life.
Education is what makes us human.

If you have some thoughts on What does Education mean to you, drop a note over to the team at Vittana… I’m sure they would appreciate it.

“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

I’m heading out to SF towards Sebastopol for a new unconference that I have never been to but was incredibly excited to be invited to FooCamp (Friends of O’Reiley) which is an invitational camp, where 250 awesome people, hackers, designers, creators, makers, and questioners gather to come up with whatever is on their mind and have great discussions with people from all over the world from different fields to boggle your mind! I’ve had quite a few friends attend and everyone seems to be energized full of ideas and disruptive ones when they return from this 3 day backyard camp gathering. There is not much online about it, but here is a write up from our friends Andrew on his experience a few years ago! I’ll be back next week with lots to write up about, and keep secret at times. Let me know if your in SF. I’m out there right before Foocamp this week.

I’ve been waiting to visit Jay Walkers incredible “Library of Imagination” for several years now and in about 12 hours I’ll be inside pondering, wondering, imagining, and wishing I could take everyone along. I’d write more about it, but the 2008 TED video above or the Wired article will explain it best until after I return, though I’ll have no photos as this is not allowed during my visit. I’ll have to thank TEDmed for arranging this visit, which is also a must go to conference I highly recommend.

A follow up from the TEDxCambridge event I co-organized: Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume critic from 2006-2010, is the Director and Curator of the Center of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. In his TedxCambridge talk he speaks about eating scent and smelling food.

A follow up from the TEDxCambridge event I co-organized: Chef, writer, and recipe developer Kenji Lopez-Alt explains how he got into the business of questioning conventional cooking wisdom and shares some of the more surprising insights he has discovered.

I thought I’d start this week off with a great short talk from our friend August on design thinking in the 21st century which I highly agree with and wished more designers thought about these points…especially about what is user centered design and is it needed…so here I go in sharing it… boom!